503 PEER REVIEW COMMITTEE
EXCERPTED from the 1998 book::
Deadly Deceit CHAPTER 2 The Crap Game
Once the proposed Part 503 regulation was promulgated, it had to go out for public comments and be peer reviewed.
One has only to look at the composition of the Peer Review Committee and who paid for it to see how biased it was in
favor of beneficial use.
According to the Federal Register, the Peer Review Committee consisted of the following people and their
organizations, EPA, USDA, Land Grant Colleges, municipal treatment plants, and industry. The Association of
Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA) and the Water Environment Federation (WEF) contributed to travel expenses
(58 FR 9267).
The AMSA and the WEF membership are composed of wastewater treatment plant management, engineering
companies, equipment suppliers, waste management industry, etc.
Representing EPA on the Peer Review Committee were:
Dr. John Walker, a physical scientist, who has built his career around promoting the use of sewage sludge as a
fertilizer, first with USDA, and then as an EPA employee. Walker's expertise on the committee included processes,
management practices and metal bioavailability. Walker was also aware by 1973 that the lime treatment process did
not destroy pathogenic organisms.
Dr. Robert Bastian, a biologist, according to 1998 documents, also served on the Part 503 Peer Review Committee.
Bastian's expertise on the committee was listed as; sludge processing, management practices and regulatory impacts.
Dr. James Ryan and Dr. Joseph Farrell, were also on the Part 503 Peer Review Committee. Ryan's expertise was metal
bioavailability and organic bioavailability. Ryan was 1 of 5 people on the committee listed with organic bioavailability
expertise. Farrell was the only person listed with any expertise in pathogens.
USDA was represented on the Committee by:
Dr. Rufus Chaney, who also built a career on doing studies promoting the use of sludge as a fertilizer. His expertise
on the committee was bioavailability of metals. Dr. Robert Dowdy was also listed as an expert on metal bioavailability.
Members on the Committee from Land Grant Colleges included:
Dr. Terry Logan of the Ohio State University (OSU), who co-chaired the Peer Review Committee. Logan's expertise on
the committee was bioavailability of metals. He has been involved with beneficial sludge use through research at the
University of Ohio and employment with commercial sludge disposal firms. In September 1998, Logan became the
President of N-Viro International, a major sludge processor.
Dr. Al Page of the University of California at Riverside (UCR), who was co-chair of the Peer Review Committee with Dr.
Logan, was listed as a metal bioavailability expert, as was Dr. Andrew Chang, Page's colleague at UCR. Dr. Page was
also the Chair of the National Science Academy's National Research Council Committee (NRC) which reviewed the
final regulation's risk assessment methodology in its 1996 report, Use of Reclaimed Water and Sludge in Food Crop
Production.
It would outwardly appear that the only area of real concern with sludge use was in the bioavailability of metals.
But where were the veterinarians, the micro-biologists, the public health service and the medical doctors? Where were
the experts who knew about disease organisms and how they are spread?
There was a definite conflict of interest in the make up of the Peer Review Committee. This is an example of what Dr.
Stan Tackett called one sided science. According to Dr. Tackett, the beneficial use scientists are well represented
on scientific committees. He says, "It is no wonder then that the scientists selected by the EPA to serve on sludge
advisory committees are the "beneficial use" researchers, and the only research reports they deem acceptable for the
purpose of adopting new sludge spreading regulations are from the "beneficial use" studies.
Some of the Peer Review members research has been funded by the EPA for a very long time. Many were involved in
the 1972 NC-118 project, "Utilization and Disposal of Municipal, Industrial and Agricultural Processing Waste on Land"
and the W-124 project, "Soil as a Waste Treatment System--a five year study involving the Land Grant Universities,
USDA and EPA"; "Optimum Utilization of Sewage Sludge on Land", a 5 year project involved 44 researchers from 15
Land Grant Universities, 3 USDA laboratories, 1 EPA laboratory, 2 municipal wastewater treatment agencies and TVA.
(This project was extended for two years). In 1984, the W-124 committee transformed itself into the W-170 committee
for another 5 year project, "Chemistry and Bioavailability of Waste Constituents in Soils". This was a slightly smaller
group composed of 25 researchers from 13 Land Grant Universities, 2 USDA laboratories, 1 municipal wastewater
treatment agency, 1 EPA laboratory and TVA.
Some members of the W-170 and predecessor Committees organized and conducted with EPA, in 1973 the "Joint
Conference on Recycling of Municipal Sludges and Effluent on Land". In 1975, 76, and 77, they published papers
dealing with standardization and methodology of using sludge and wastewaters on land. In 1979, they reviewed the
part 257 solid waste sludge disposal regulation. In 1983, the W-170 committee sponsored a workshop on "Utilization of
Municipal Wastewater and Sludge on Land" with EPA, USDA, the University of California Kearney Foundation of Soil
Science, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Science Foundation.
Two years later in 1985, the W-170 committee organized and conducted a workshop on "Land Application of Municipal
Sewage Sludge". The Workshop assessed the validity of the assumptions made in the risk assessment process on
fate of sludge contaminates. Findings of the workshop are contained in a book entitled Land Application of Municipal
Sewage Sludge edited by (three members of the Peer Review Committee) A.L. Page, T.J. Logan, and J.A. Ryan. [32]
Some members of the W-124 committee were also on the 1987 EPA Science Advisory Board which reviewed the
Technical Documents supporting the revisions of Part 257 on the use and disposal of sewage sludge. Yet, EPA's
Science Advisory Board did not review the final Part 503 regulations for land use.
The only way the Committee could change the regulation was to attack the methodology behind the regulation.
Although the Technical Support Documents (TSDs) had been reviewed and approved by the Science Advisory Board
in 1987, which was composed of some of the same members as the Peer Review Committee, the Committee critised
the regulations as containing:
Such extensive misinterpretation and errors in the TSDs that it is imperative that EPA review and revise them
completely. We also recommend that review and revision of the rule and the TSDs be conducted in consultation
with the PRC (Peer Review Committee) and other knowledgeable experts.
What was worse, in their view, was that beneficial use would be effectively prohibited under the new rule, because:
The proposed rule is based on a series of worst case scenarios, which are so stringent and inflexible that
local communities are precluded from beneficial use options considered protective of the public health and
the environment under local conditions. Beneficial use is constrained because the proposed rule provides no
allowances for local conditions within and among communities. The PRC is concerned that, in spite of the
Agency's own findings that the aggregate risk for the land-based sludge utilization options are lower than
that associated with other disposal options, the proposed regulations encourage non-utilization practices.
The PRC mentioned an interesting concept of the sludge use risk assessment. Somehow, someway, by some magic, it
was less dangerous to dispose of toxic pollutant contaminated sludge on your food crop production land and lawn,
than it was to disposed of the sludge in a highly regulated legally permitted landfill.
One of the key areas of Part 503 that was criticized by the Peer Review Committee was the risk assessment method
which allowed for worst case scenarios. The worse case scenarios are the same precautionary principals that
European countries and Canada use to protect their people from adverse health effects of toxicity and the
environment from further degradation from exposure to sludge.
The first step in their effort to gut the 1989 proposed regulation was for the Peer Review Committee to attack the
lack of science behind the regulation. They wrote:
It is evident from a review of the document that many of the conclusions reached by EPA are not driven by
science, but rather by policy decisions. In view of the inherent uncertainties in risk assessment and the
necessity for value judgements, the prominence of the policy decisions is understandable. However, instead of
acknowledging these policy decisions and justifying them on legal, political and social grounds, EPA has in many
cases, tried to make it appear that the basis for these decisions was scientific. This problem permeates the
proposed rule and technical support documents.--- we wish to emphasize that EPA has disguised policy decisions
with the risk assessment assumptions and database, apparently to make it appear that the results were
derived scientifically. Had they wished to do the effort correctly they should have, at the very least, clearly
presented the underlying assumptions, data and models. Instead, these are scattered through numerous documents
in a manner that is very difficult to assess.
Although the Committee found fault with most of the risk assessment, it accepted the EPA's less conservative 1 in
10,000, instead of 1 in a 1,000,000, risk assessment for cancer because "the 1 in 10,000 risk level reduces the
regulatory impact of the rule allowing the Agency to regulate the use and disposal of sewage sludge without needlessly
burdening the regulated community or negatively impacting beneficial reuse." (58 FR p. 9281)
[We now know there was no cancer risk assessment of any type of chemical or pathogen]
Of course, the purpose of the regulation was to get rid of the sludge problem, not regulate it. Basically, many
sludge disposal sites could have already exceeded the proposed regulated limits.
Exactly who was the Peer Review Committee working for when it made the recommendations to:
* Exempt from the rule banned compounds that have been shown to pose insignificant risk (such as lindane,
chlordane, PCBs, hexachlorobutadiene). This action would be consistent with the screening approach used by
EPA (i.e., Environmental Profile and Hazard Indices) to eliminate low priority pollutants from consideration.
* Exclude from the rule the chemicals which the Agency assumes to be lost from the sludge during processing and
are not present in sludge in significant amounts.
The Peer Review Committee, composed primarily of scientists who claimed to be experts on metals, recommended
EPA exempt the toxic organic chemicals to make it easier for the POTWs to accept the beneficial land disposal
methods. If the organic chemicals that were listed in the proposed Part 503 were regulated, it would require the
POTWs to do costly tests. The dioxin test alone would cost between $900 to $1200 a test.
Compare this with co-disposal (2,991 POTWs) of sludge and solid waste under Parts 257/258, where no organic
chemical tests are required, but ground water monitoring is required as well as a risk assessment of 1 in 100,000 for
over 200 chemicals.
One of the recommendations of the Peer Review Committee which would help to increase the beneficial use of sludge
was to
* Develop the concept of a "clean sludge" which allows minimal regulation. In other words, the Peer Review
Committee wanted to make it easy for the POTWs by not requiring any additional paperwork. Any paperwork would
draw attention to the product and the toxic contents. Paperwork would also allow tracking of the product for
liability purposes. Clean in this case only means there is a little less of some of the toxic metals in the products.
Another recommendation of the Peer Review Committee was
* Not regulate all D&M (distributing and marketing) products as a sludge. In effect, take the labeling requirements off,
so the public will not know they are buying this toxic and
extremely hazardous material.
Actually, the Peer Review Committee's recommendation to market sludge as a "clean" Exceptional Quality (EQ) product
violates basic consumer protection rights, as stated by President John F. Kennedy in the 60s:
1) The RIGHT TO SAFETY;
2) the RIGHT TO BE INFORMED;
3) the RIGHT TO CHOOSE; and
4) the RIGHT TO BE HEARD.
1) RIGHT TO SAFETY
The consumers right to safety is ignored in the distribution and marketing of the "clean" EQ toxic contaminated sludge
product for use on home lawns, gardens, school grounds and parks, because the consumer is unaware of
the unstated dangers contained in the products. The danger is from pathogens in the product, the additional regrowth
of pathogens, and the inhalation or ingestion of toxic organic chemicals and toxic heavy metals when the product is
used.
The marketers of EQ sludge know that if the purchasing consumer was aware this product contained lead, mercury,
cadmium, dioxins, PCBs and disease causing organisms such as E. coli and Salmonella, etc., they would never buy it.
No parent would ever expose their children to this toxic fertilizer mix if they were aware of its contents.
2) RIGHT TO BE INFORMED
The consumer's right to be informed is disregarded in the promotion of the "clean" EQ toxic sludge product. Through
deceptive advertising they are led to believe there is no danger from the EQ product used as a fertilizer. As there is
no labeling required on EQ products as with all other consumer products, the consumer is kept in the dark
concerning the quality of the toxic pollutant contaminated product. How could there be any instructions for its safe
use, when no one knows whats in the product?.
3) RIGHT TO CHOOSE
Because of a lack of information on the contents and use of "clean" EQ sludge products, the consumer is unable to
make a wise comparison among toxic contaminated sludge, manure and other commercial fertilizers not containing
dangerous mixtures of toxic substances. The right to choose a safe product has been subverted by EPA.
4) RIGHT TO BE HEARD
The way the product has been packaged and promoted the consumer's right to be heard will never happen. They will
never associate any acute adverse health effects, i.e., a child playing in the yard where sludge was spread as a
fertilizer, who becomes ill or dies from exposure to worms, E. coli or Salmonella that has regrown in the product, with
the product itself. Subchronic and chronic effects from exposure to toxic heavy metals and deadly organic chemicals,
such as cancer, immune and reproductive system damage, which would take years to show up, would never be
connected with the product.
The Peer Review Committee could not let the proposed regulation stand as written. It was too conservative and
would have effectively curtailed much of the land application of sludge. Furthermore, EPA had too much money
invested in beneficial use research and development, too many people had built their careers on beneficial use of
sludge research and too much sludge had already been used for crop production as well as on home lawns and
gardens. This could create a huge liability problem if the practice was discontinued.